Another Lesson For NGS, Courtesy of NPR

… An unusual gathering took place in San Francisco on Friday: NPR corralled about sixty Bay Area technology thought leadersâ€”innovators, entrepreneurs, strategists, and investorsâ€”put them in a bunch of conference rooms, and asked them to brainstorm ideas for the networkâ€™s digital future. NPR called it a â€œDigital Think In.â€

The goal was to come up with ideas that would help NPRâ€™s digital teams â€œcreate a more informed public.â€ A key requirement was that all ideas had to be things the network could realistically implement within the next five years….

The â€œopen kimonoâ€ approach was another unusual aspect of Fridayâ€™s gathering. Instead of keeping the discussions behind closed doors, NPR opened them up, broadcasting live from the group sessions and live-blogging and tweeting from the breakout groups. Reporters were invited to attend the event, and participants were notified that all discussions would be â€œon the record.â€ The thinking is that the more brains NPR can get working on the challenges it faces, the better the ideas that will be generated.

Clay Shirky

â€œClay Shirky talks about how thereâ€™s no way any single organization, no matter how smart the individuals inside it are, can respond to the pace at which things are changing,â€ Wilson said. [Kinsey Wilson is NPR’s senior vice president and general manager for digital media.] “The value of allowing people to come into the conversation will exceed whatever you give up in terms of proprietary ideas.â€

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About

Hi. I'm Alan Mairson. I'm a freelance journalist based in Bethesda, Maryland; a former staff writer & editor for National Geographic magazine; and a member & lifelong fan of the National Geographic Society. For details about this project, please check out our inaugural post. For more about my advisers & me, see this. To feel the tight financial grip that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation exerts on the National Geographic Society, peek at these tax returns. And if you'd like to share ideas, questions, or suggestions — or if you just want to heckle :-) — please contact me here. Thanks for stopping by.